


Entremet

by DestructiveEmpathy



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Gen, HBB, HBB 2016, Season/Series 01, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-15 12:15:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8055946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestructiveEmpathy/pseuds/DestructiveEmpathy
Summary: His nightmares can never match his past. Travelling all of the way to Alaska, Will struggles to hold onto reality. A monster is abducting and disposing of young women. Some are mutilated, others are abused but all are left as empty corpses.But when a woman visits Will's motel room, he fights his dying mind to save her and understand the killer.





	Entremet

The icy winds bit at Will Graham’s skin. He pulled his coat tighter around himself and took the key from the receptionist. Jack had found for them all this dark nowhere place. Will definitely wasn’t going to complain, though. The eerie stillness was _almost_ peaceful. It offered him a small sense of solace from his horrid thoughts - at least for those small moments when he didn't have to think about the case. 

            Will found his room and began to settle in for the night with a bottle of nameless motel-store whiskey and the files from the case. Each page turned was another victim’s profile. Their porcelain faces haunted his dreams every night during the case. Their pale lips remained still, letting their cold eyes tell their tragic story. They accused Will for both everything and nothing. His inaction had allowed this scene. If he’d just ignored Hannibal’s and Alana’s warnings at least one of the girls would have been alive.

            _The fragile porcelain of their faces crack_ _and fall away to leave only bloody skulls._

            The case-files revealed no motive nor patterns aside from the obvious. Any cop fresh off of the beat could tell the killer was a man with unique strength and a dangerous obsession. 

            This was the reason why they needed Will’s unique eyes. He could see the killer between the lines in the files. These women had been meat in their killer’s eyes. Warm flesh to bend and mould into the perfect woman. These were his cast offs. Rejections from the heap. They lacked something the killer needed. 

            This wasn’t completely unlike the Hobbs’ case. A certain calibre of woman was abducted monthly. But their similarities weren’t in appearance. They all worked in the public services. Police officers, firefighters, doctors and soldiers. At a glance, the killer could have been killing because he reviled powerful women. A woman had her place in society but it wasn’t on the front-line.

            But he didn't believe that. The killer admired women. They were something beyond himself.

      _Something better._

            ‘He’s recreating the perfect heroine.’ Will set the folder down beside him on the bed and rubbed his face. His fingers reached up into his sweaty curls and tugged them in an attempt to ground himself. His low breaths were slow and harsh. 

            Even in the cold and dark room, he felt a burning heat bubbling beneath his skin. His mind swam in lit gasoline and he was struggling to keep everything in place within the jumbled halls of his mind.

            Will laid back and crossed his arms over his eyes to drift to sleep. Silence. He'd do anything for silence to fight the piercing in his skull.

            A sharp rapping at the door awoke Will with a harsh gasp. His eyes began to adjust to the inky blue darkness and the searing pain erupted again. He struggled to stand without the throbs crippling him. He swallowed back two Bufferin and shuffled to the door. He frowned at the sight of a girl at his door. 

            She stood, dripping wet from the melted snow. Her green eyes were those of a wounded doe, pleading with Will to help. She didn’t and needn’t say anything at all to compel Will to step aside for her. She created a dreamlike vacuum, sucking the air from the room. But Will knew he was awake. There was no doubt about that.

            He glanced outside to make sure there had been no one following her. He caught eye contact with Beverly as she fought the Coca-Cola vending machine. There was no one else.

            Stepping back into the room, he turned to the girl. She was wrapping herself in one of the towels that had been laid out for Will. Her torn blue dress was pooled at her bare feet, soaking the shag-pile carpet beneath. Her feet left black prints where they stepped. The light distorted the colours of the girl's body. The flaming red of her hair took on the copperish brown of congealed blood.

            ‘Are you okay?’ Will moved towards her as he pulled his coat from a hook and draped it over her bare shoulders.

            The girl shrank back into it and hugged it around herself. She buried her face in the scratchy material and breathed in the scent of dog and sandalwood. Her weak smile was that of someone who’d lost everything. ‘I knew you’d save me.’

            ‘Save you?’ Will placed a hand on her shoulder, thumb rubbing circles where it lay. His closed smile was a small and tight line. He pulled away and went to get his phone to call someone. He couldn’t leave her here on her own.

            Before he could call anyone, a hammering vibrated through the room. Both he and the girl looked to the door with hearts racing and lumps in their throats.

            Will drew his gun and moved towards the door. He slid the chain into place and opened the door a crack. He peeked out to see Jack standing there with his hands in his pockets and a disturbed crease between his brows. Will unchained the door and pulled it open fully.

            ‘We found another one,’ Jack said.

            Will glanced to the girl, readying himself to introduce her to Jack. His words died in his mouth when all he saw was her dress in the same puddle on the floor. He looked back around the room. The bathroom door was open and there was no one in there. She... She must have climbed out of a window when his back was turned. 

            ‘I need you focussed, Will,’ Jack said, already walking away.

            Will followed, locking the door behind him. The world was vibrating and his eyes felt cloudy. Goosebumps prickled his skin as he walked through the snow with no coat on. The blackish blue of the night made each step harder.

            As they passed the parked cars, Will hesitated. Each step distanced him and made the reality set deep within his gut. He followed Jack into the woodland behind the motel. Deeper and deeper they walked, trudging mud and rotting leaves through the patches of snow. There were yellowish white lights in the distance, bobbing and flicking between the trees. The light in the distance blinded the edges of Will’s sight. There was only one way to go.

            ‘She’s been thawed,’ Brian said.

            ‘Killed, frozen to stop decomposition and make time of death hard to determine,’ said Jimmy. Both he and Brian were stood with their flashlights aimed up into the treetops.

            Jack stopped in the small clearing and looked up to where they were looking. ‘Any clue how?’

            ‘Probably same as the others,’ said Brian.

            ‘Not necessarily. We don’t know that until we get her to the morgue.’ Jimmy turned away to begin to set up the industrial torches.

            Will stood watching the others but something was missing from this painting. Brian and Jimmy were doing their dance – the dance they do every day. A waltz of vibrant colours, various reds and golds shining through the trees. Jack stood at the edge of the canvas, arms crossed and his dominating figure hidden from plain sight. And the body.

            She hung high above them, her pale blue uniform and glistening shield-shaped badge reflecting gold from the industrial lights. Each wrist was bound to a branch as if she were crucified.

            ‘Is that her uniform?’ Jack nodded to her.

            ‘You mean was she really a cop?’ Brian said. ‘From here you can tell it’s an Alaskan uniform.’

            ‘Like the others.’

            ‘Ah, but she’s not on any missing person’s records,’ Jimmy said. ‘No, she’s probably a drifter picked up elsewhere.’

            Will remained quiet, frowning into the darkness. ‘Where’s Beverly?’

            The other men all looked up at him blankly. Then they glanced at each other and back at Will. Jimmy and Brian asked each other with their eyes if they had seen her. Both shrugged.

            ‘I’m sure she’s fine. Just focus on this girl.’ Will noticed Jack step back. ‘You, focus,’ he said as he disappeared back into the dark.

            Brian approached Will like moving in to pet a feral hound. ‘She was probably a drifter. Picked up elsewhere and then murdered and dressed up with a uniform.’

            ‘One of the previous victims was displayed nude,’ Jimmy added.

            Will pulled on his purple latex gloves without a word to the others. In the silence, the other two realised their advice was unwanted, so stepped aside.

            Will looked up at the girl into the trees. According to Jimmy and Brian, she was nobody special. But what if she was _the_ someone they were looking for? She was the golden thread that tied the other girls together.

 

 _Of all of the girls taken, this scene was the cleanest. The most thought out. The other scenes were the same as each other. A woman laid out on the snow, her wrists and ankles tied to distant tree stumps. Da Vinci’s_ Vitruvian Man _superimposed itself onto Will’s eyes._

_These women were bared for all to see. The killer wanted them to be critiqued. But this girl was above. She was superior. Untouchable. Irreplaceable._

 

Temporary floodlights flashed through the area. Will recoiled and covered his eyes. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust and to notice the local forensics teams beginning to comb through the scene.

            Will looked for Jack in the sudden bustle but he still wasn’t back. A lump rested on Will’s throat like the threat of sickness teasing him.

 

_How did this girl die? There was nothing obvious from this distance but he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t a violent murder like the others until he saw her completely bare. But he was damn sure the killer of the girls from before hadn’t laid a finger on her._

 

Jack reappeared beside him and waved Brian and Jimmy over. ‘Beverly isn’t in her room and while she’s a grown adult… under the circumstances I think we are safe to believe she has been abducted. Possibly while the killer was setting this up.’

            Brian and Jimmy didn’t even exchange looks this time.

            ‘This girl wasn’t murdered,’ Will said.

            The others all frowned.

            ‘How can you even tell that?’ Brian said, exhaustion and anger bubbling through.

            ‘She was the one the killer is replicating. She isn’t a missing person because she’s always been dead. From the beginning,’ Jack said, everything finally dawning on him. The pieces were finally settling into place.

            ‘And how does that help Beverly?’ Brian said, his biting tone hiding the fear as it overcame him.

            ‘Because it means she won’t die immediately. We have time,’ Jack said.

            ‘Not a lot,’ Will said.

            ‘But enough. More than we’ve had for the others,’ Jack said. ‘Will, where would you take Beverly if you were the killer?’

            Will shrugged and tried to think, but something was twisting in his gut. His eyes danced over the girl’s face, full of shadows. He stepped forwards, torch pointing up and illuminating her green eyes empty, her once flame red hair now the copperish brown of congealed blood from thawing. 

            He fell back into the sludge and snow. His chest heaved and bile rose up into his throat. It was all he could do to turn his head before he heaved onto the soaked woodland floor. His heart hammered in his chest and breathing was impossible. Each drag of air burned and he couldn’t keep the sharp throbs of pain shooting through one side of his skull.

            ‘Agent?’ an officer said with something in his arms. He offered a soaked deep grey coat to Jack.

            Jack had turned and was about to chastise the young officer for moving evidence when he froze. The coat was very similar- no. The coat was exactly the same as the one Will had been wearing when they’d arrived at the motel. It was the very same coat Will _wasn’t_ wearing.

             Jimmy was distractedly taking crime scene photographs while Brian was taking soil samples and negotiating the removal of the corpse with the surrounding officers.

             Jack took that as a chance to get the truth from Will. He took him by the arm and heaved him from the vomit and snow-soaked earth. They were well away from the crime scene when Jack stopped.

            ‘What’s this, Will?’

            Will looked up at Jack, head swimming and eyes hazy. ‘A-a coat. My coat.’

            ‘And what exactly is _your_ coat doing at my crime scene, Will?’ Jack was wringing the water from it. Will was sure he was imagining it was Will’s neck.

            ‘You wouldn’t believe me.’

            ‘Try me.’

             Will tried his best to sound sane as he relayed the story of how the girl had ended up in his motel room. No matter what he said he sounded unstable. ‘You can-can probably find her dress in there still.’

            Jack’s face was almost unreadable, but experience told Will that this wasn’t going the way he wanted – but exactly how he’d expected. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have bought you here.’ Hannibal had warned him. Alana had warned him. It was rare that both psychiatrists were in agreement about Will’s wellbeing.

            ‘No-no you needed me. You _still_ need me. Beverly is out there and you know I’m the only one who can help find her.’

             Jack let go of the breath he’d seemed to be holding and finally turned to face Will again. ‘And Beverly saw you with the girl?’

            Will nodded slowly, hoping to god that it would help give him a chance to clear his name.

            Turning to Will face on, Jack nodded. ‘I don’t want anyone else to know this or that we found your coat at the scene. Not until Beverly can corroborate your story.’

            Will felt one weight lift and another replace it. He knew the terms. He wasn’t the killer. They both knew that, but the other two were less certain about everything surrounding Will. There was no way Will could have killed the girl, but there was always that doubt. Doubt destroyed teams and they needed to be strong if they were going to find Beverly.

            ‘How long have we got, Will?’

            ‘Beverly has a week. At the least. Three at most if-’ Will hesitated. ‘-If she isn’t the perfect replacement.’

            ‘Replacement for the girl in the trees?’

            Will’s slow nod was all Jack needed to know how dire Beverly’s chances were.

            ‘Then we have to find her, now.’

            The two men left the woods for Jimmy and Brian to deal with. There was nothing either Will or Jack could do there, anyway. But they _could_ find Beverly.

            Jack had Will change his clothes and bring him the dress the girl had supposedly left in his room. While Will was in the bathroom, Jack was pawing through the room for possible proof that the girl had been there. The sopping wet dress’ musky and damp scent told Jack that it had been wet and scrunched up for a long time. Deep down, he knew Will’s alibi was illogical but the dress _was_ there. Will’s coat had been at the scene and Beverly was not hidden under Will’s mattress. While it probably didn’t go the way Will had said, Will hadn't killed the girls. Not to mention that he had been in Virginia while the killer worked out of Alaska the whole time.

            There was no other evidence in the room so Jack bagged the dress up and tucked it under his coat.

            Once Will was out of the bathroom, they headed to Jack’s rental car. ‘Brian and Jimmy are already at the morgue. They said the prints will be with them asap,’ Jack said as he climbed in. It turned out the police worked double time when it was their own stations that were the killer's hunting ground. 

             The start of the car journey was quiet as Will flicked through the files that were splayed out on his lap. He pushed his mind to delve deep into the killer’s. If he could discern a stronger bond aside from just the fact they were ‘heroes’ he might’ve been able to profile the killer properly.

             Will’s mind struggled to focus, the edges of his walls vibrating. He tried to direct his thoughts forwards and into the present but even that was a struggle. Hobbs’ face was like a lasting echo of the sun behind closed eyes.

             Will slipped into the dreamlike world of the surreal, the home of the bizarre. _The shadows twisted and warped as they grew and engulfed him. He felt tar fill his lungs and his eyes burn. He reached out for help, only to find nothingness in the abyss._

_The shadows gripped his arms and ripped them back. Tight ropes bit his wrists as he was lifted into the air. Hobbs’ face grinned up at him as the world took shape. Will’s spine felt as if it was breaking._

_‘See?’ Hobbs’ grin was poison. ‘See?’_

_A tidal wave crashed between the trees, racing towards them. Will tried to scream but the water engulfed him._

            Will jolted awake, trembling and dripping with sweat. He could feel Jack’s eyes on him as he repositioned himself in his seat. Tipping his head back, he ran his fingers through his own sweat soaked hair. ‘Who is she, Jack?’

            Jack remained silent for a good long minute until he finally spoke up. ‘Her prints match Special Agent Ashley Moore.’

            Will’s frown faltered and deepened before he scooped a folder up from the foot well where he’d dropped it. ‘I know that name.’

            ‘Should do. She was one of your students over five years ago.’ With Will’s brilliant – almost eidetic – visual memory, Jack was more than a little concerned that he wasn’t connecting with the victim.

            ‘I remember. She-I attended her funeral,’ Will said.

            Jack pulled up at the local police station and turned to Will. ‘How did she die Will?’

            ‘Brian can tell you.’

            ‘That’s not what I’m asking.’

            Will sighed and covered his eyes with his hands. It was hard to bring back the memories of so long ago. ‘She was-was in an abusive relationship. Her boyfriend… he isolated her from her family. No makeup, no pretty clothes. When she left him, she came to the academy looking for a friend. She found me instead. I tried to get her to stay but…’

            ‘She ran off?’

            Will nodded once. ‘She drowned in the river.’

            It made sickness settle deep within Jack. She had died on his doorstep. She died when they should have seen it. They were trained to spot people in that situation and still they didn’t stop it. ‘So you think it’s her boyfriend?’

            ‘No.’

            ‘How can you be sure?’

            ‘Because he stuck a twelve gauge between his teeth and pulled the trigger before we could question him.’ Will climbed out of the car before Jack could say anything else on the matter. Will was just struggling to keep it together as Ashley returned to his memory.

 

_She sits in the lecture hall, her hair scraped back in a tight ponytail and her crisp FBI academy uniform on._

_Will can see she’s small. Yes, she’s thin but she holds her body as if it will get in the way of someone._

_Everyone else glows in their first class, but this girl’s light is dying. The only time he sees her light is when she hands in her work. She wants to be there. She wants to be a hero._

_Weeks pass and she begins to glow again. There is something new in her life and she wants to make it, now. She has something to live for._

 

Will tried to keep those memories down, but now he knew her he knew it would be easier to find whoever wanted to replicate her with Beverly.

            As Will entered the station, the cops all moved aside for him. They knew not to get in the way of the FBI, even if they did mock Will’s lack of actual FBI status behind his back. He didn’t care. They were all there for one thing and that was to help the girl. It wouldn’t be until they actually said something that he’d attack. 

           He pulled on some gloves and entered the morgue where Jimmy and Brian were hurrying around. He could see their hearts with every desperate motion. They wanted Ashley analysed fast so that Beverly could be found.

            Jack came in behind Will. ‘What aren’t you telling me, Will?’

            ‘I don’t know yet.’ Will moved around the slab, looking at the porcelain face and unmoving blue lips. Ashley’s eyes were closed, peacefully sleeping. As her hair began to dry, it took up the fire it once had.

 

_‘You don’t think it’s too much too soon?’_

_‘No. Why should it be? You’re getting top scores on all of your papers. I’d be surprised if they rejected your request.’ Will leans against his desk and sets her proposal behind him. He crosses his arms. ‘Visiting the Body Farm would mean missing a lot of work but you can easily catch up and earn something more special: a practical understanding of the subject.’_

_‘And that’s priceless?’ she says, quoting something he’d taught them earlier._

_Her phone rings before she can tell him her decision. Instead, the blood drains from her face and she hurries out of the room._

           

‘Honestly, she just drowned. Nothing more nothing less. Broke her leg in the tumble and then got pretty badly scraped on her way down the bank,’ Jimmy said.

            ‘She would have survived if it wasn’t pouring it down,’ Brian said.

            ‘The river was flowing way to fast and it was way too deep,’ Jimmy said.

            ‘ _She_ is the reason we have a fence around it, now,’ Brian said.

 

_She rushes into the lecture hall, whispering something in the near darkness. ‘Andy?’_

_Will looks up from his desk, a tired frown creasing his brow. ‘Who’s there?’_

_Ashley stops in front of Will’s desk, the only light the orange glow from a lamp. She is dripping wet, her pale blue dress nearly transparent from where the thin material sticks to her skin._

_When Will sees the state of her, he immediately stands and walks around the desk with his coat. ‘Are you okay?’ She obviously isn’t, but people don’t like to be told that. If she wants, she will tell him._

_‘Where-where’s Andy?’_

_‘Andy?’ Will drapes the coat over her shoulders and guides her to his seat. ‘Does he take forensics with you?’_

_Ashley nods, hugging herself. ‘Where is he? He said he’d meet me here.’_

_Will has to flip through each memory of every student, the image of a strongly built ‘boy’ rings true. Andrew Wilmott._

 

Will froze, gripping the cold metal table with white fingers. Andrew Wilmott was built to be a man but was such a child. His test scores were exceptional, but his cockiness made Will hate him just a little. One thing about Andrew Wilmott that Will admired was his loyalty. His protective devotion.

            A cold wave shot through Will’s stomach, almost crippling him. The others were busying themselves at the fringes of the room as they tried to figure out who killed Ashley Moore – and in turn who had Beverley.

            Will approached behind Brian who was at a computer. ‘Can you look at Andrew Wilmott?’ Will wiped the sweat from the back of his neck, pretending to massage it. He’d have killed for a Bufferin or _something_ in that moment.

            Brian frowned and risked a glance at Will, something he sometimes feared doing. Will was a scary guy – not in build but in behaviour. In fact, Will looked quite inoffensive, like a house painter wearing an ill-fitting suit for court. And shit, Brian was just a little bit jealous.

            Will raised his eyebrows pointedly, trying to get Brian to stop looking at him. ‘Andrew Wilmott.’

            Brian turned back to the screen and began typing the name. ‘And-Rew Wil-Mott. Hey, didn’t he write that thing… that book?’

            ‘ _Hidden Forensics Behind the Gothic_? I loved that book,’ Jimmy said from across the room as he played with petri dishes with dirt in them.

            ‘Yeah, that?’ Brian started to scroll through a potential match. ‘Why do you care about him?’

            Will leaned over Brian, distinctly keeping a distance even in that position. He scanned through the page as he tried to read it. Andrew had left the FBI academy after Ashley’s death and was only heard of again once he’d published his books about literary dissections. Will himself had enjoyed one or two – until he noticed how Andrew had outright plagiarised one of Will’s papers without so much as a reference.

            ‘She was looking for him the night she died.’ Will pulled away.

 

_'Why are you here, Ashley?’ Will says, handing her a cup of coffee. He crouches beside her and removes his glasses. ‘Who’s chasing you?’_

_‘I’m not being chased, Mr Graham.’ It is clearly a lie. ‘I’m just trying to find Andy.’_

_Will smiles up at her, sadness pulling at the corners of his eyes. ‘Do you want me to do anything to help?’_

_It’s as if she sees something in Will’s eyes that terrifies her. She immediately stands and steps away shaking her head. ‘There’s nothing anyone can do. You can’t save me.’_

_She runs from the room and Will tries to follow but she turns a corner and he can no longer see where she went. The dark halls of the FBI academy are empty once more._

 

If only Will had followed faster. It gnawed at his insides and threatened to make him vomit. It hurt just to think that maybe he could have saved her and smothered the killer its crib.

            Will left the building in a hurry. Swallowing gulps of icy air as it froze his lungs and made his brain scream out. He hugged his gut, fingers digging into his side. He’d as good as killed Ashley by tiptoeing around her to get answers. He’d been too soft.

            ‘Will?’ Jack’s voice appeared behind him. ‘What did you see?’

            Tears stung at Will’s eyes and his teeth creaked with the force he grit them with. ‘Nothing.’

            ‘Don’t lie.’

            Will turned to face Jack. ‘Andrew Wilmott. She was looking for him when she found me.’

            ‘Tonight?’ Jack moved closer, his frown deepening.

            Will shook his head. ‘When she died the-the first time.’

            ‘And you think he killed the other girls.’

            ‘He was the one who convinced her to leave her abuser. He was her anchor.’ Will’s sun blasted skin looked sickly white in the blue moonlight.

            Jack stared at him for a long moment, struggling to understand him. The words were normal but Will’s behaviour was erratic. ‘I should get Hannibal to come up.’

            ‘What?’ Will’s soft eyes immediately hardened. ‘You don’t believe me?’

            ‘You’re too personally involved. I need you here, but he might give you subjectivity.’ Jack could have sworn he heard Will growl.

            ‘You don’t trust my judgement. You don’t trust me.’ Will turned away and stormed off towards the road.

            ‘Where are you going? Will!’ Jack called after him. When Will disappeared, Jack decided it was better to call Hannibal and return to the investigation. Beverly was in the more immediate danger. He'd come back in his own time. 

            The woods were black either side of the road. The silence was comforting as Will fought his haunting memories.

            It felt like he’d been walking for hours when headlights finally broke through the black horizon.

            Will hadn’t hitchhiked since he was seventeen and trying to make a point to his father. He didn’t imagine ever doing it again but he was in Alaska with no money on him and there was no way he was going going back to the station. 

            With a sharp intake of breath, he extended his arm out and waited for the vehicle to pass him. They didn’t.

            Will could barely make out the reddish brown of the van in the darkness. The faded words _D’s Cannery_  discoloured the sliding door. His eyes travelled slowly across the rusted trims and paint flecks towards the cab of the van where a dishevelled man sat smoking in the driver’s seat.

            ‘Y gettin’ in or what?’ The guy was big enough to crush Will in one hand to make pate out of him.

            But Will was a grown-ass man and he wasn’t going to let the uneasy feeling prevent him from making a point to Jack. He climbed into the passenger side, brushing snacks and old tobacco from the damp seat.

            ‘Put your seatbelt on.’

            Will glanced at the man, who seemed on edge. Fright. He slammed the cab door and clicked the stiff belt in place.

            ‘Where’d you wanna be dropped off?’

            Will had half the mind to tell him to take him back to the station and let Jack deal with the creep, but there was that niggling feeling that told him that this guy wasn’t the problem. ‘Nearest town possible.’

            The van groaned and shrieked as it started back up and headed back down the road Will had walked. As they passed the bright lights of the police station, he felt that niggling sense of panic sink low in his chest. Somewhere in his mind he imagined Jack spotting him in the strange van and chasing them down.

            ‘Why’re you out so late down here?’ The van driver glanced over. ‘They release you from jail?’

            ‘What makes you say that?’ Will kept his eyes on the horizon.

            ‘I pick up a creep from near a police station and you’re surprised?’

            Creep. Will sighed and tilted his head ever so slightly to catch a glimpse of the man beside him. His knuckles were white. ‘If you thought I was dangerous, you’d have done the smart thing and passed me by. Or dropped me back at the station.’

            The driver shifted awkwardly in his seat. ‘Not that creepy. Worse things out there than you.’

            ‘What’s your name?’

            ‘Why?’

            ‘Because maybe we’d not be so threatening if we knew each other’s names.’

            The driver glanced over again. ‘Trevor.’

            ‘Well, Trevor… I’m Will. No danger to you or anyone.’ Will turned his attention back to the dark night and rows of trees.

            The silence in the cab became almost amiable in the time it took to get to civilisation.

            When Trevor turned off into a dark parking lot, he turned to Will. ‘Go on.’

            Will thanked him with a silent nod and began to climb out.

            Before he could say anything, Trevor began screaming at him. ‘Run, Will. Fucking run!’

            ‘What?’ Will turned around to face him again as he noticed the van’s sliding door opening and the barrel of a gun peek through the gap.

            The loud bang echoed through the dark streets and left ringing in Will’s head. The sharp pain followed, shooting through his hip.

 

‘Will?’ Jack tried his phone again but found no reply.

            Hannibal knocked on Will’s motel door again, hoping this was just another one of Will’s sleepwalks. ‘He’s not here, Jack.’

            ‘I knew I should have followed him.’

            ‘Do not blame yourself. None of us could predict what he does. He has a thousand voices pushing against the walls of his mind. Perhaps he is simply staying elsewhere to forget the horror of what has happened here.’ Hannibal placed a warm hand on Jack’s shoulder.

            Nodding, Jack pocketed his phone and sunk against the weight of Hannibal’s hand. ‘You and Alana both told me not to bring him here.’

            ‘I must admit, my reasons were wholly selfish.’ Hannibal began walking back towards Jack’s car. ‘William is my friend and I feared being too far from him in such a violent setting.’

            Both men climbed into the car and returned to the police station to pour over police station CCTV recordings.

            ‘There!’ Jimmy paused the image and rewound it for point two of a second. ‘You see it?’

            The grainy image of a brownish red van passing the station sent a chill through Jack’s spine. There was a blurry image of someone looking out of the passenger side, right at the station, its floodlights illuminating the vague shape.

            ‘You don’t think…’ Jimmy said.

            ‘Will hitchhiked?’ Jack peered closer. ‘Doesn’t sound like him.’

            ‘On the contrary,’ Hannibal said from where he leaned over Jack’s shoulder. ‘Will has a history of it.’

            Brian tsked from where he stood, by Ashley’s dead body. ‘He’s a full grown damn adult. Beverly’s still out there and we _know_ she’s in danger!’

            Everyone turned to face him.

            ‘I’m just… saying that he’s got a fucking gun. And a- a guy’s strength.’

            Hannibal glanced between Brian and Jack. ‘He is right, Jack. Will is perfectly capable of defending himself from an **unarmed** attacker.’

            Jack felt hands wrap around his throat as if Hannibal’s words bought him on the defensive. ‘We find this van, we might find Will. We can’t find Beverly without him.’

            Brian wanted to smash the place up, but instead he stormed out of the room before he could do something to get himself fired.

            Jimmy followed quickly behind him, possibly to support him but most likely to have his own tantrum.

            ‘Looks like it’s just us.’ Jack sighed and sat down at the computer, seat still warm from Jimmy.

 

A throbbing pain beat through Will’s body, the position he was in made his back scream out and the stitches pull. It was dark, specks of light only broke through the gaps of the fabric over his eyes.

            There was dripping like water on metal in the distance and an icy breeze against his cheeks.

            ‘Mhmmph!’ He tried move, only managing to topple himself over onto his side.

            ‘I’m sorry, Will,’ a familiar voice said. ‘But you knew this was going to happen.’

            Will tried to speak or cry out, but his words were muffled. Andrew Wilmot had gagged him, too.

            Hands gripped his arms bitingly tight and he felt his whole body weight be lifted onto something. Many sharp shards pierced into his skin he could only describe as a bed of nails. It had to have been glass or _something_.

            A grinding sound and the sudden vibration of the ground beneath him started him off again. He cried out for help but there was no one but him and Andrew in the room now. With a jolt, the platform began to move.

            ‘You see, you could have saved her. But you let her go. You let her feel terrified and helpless.’

            Will thrashed, the shards of glass embedding themselves into his thighs.

            ‘Now, I couldn’t find a river around here that was just right. But I did find the next best thing. Since thinking about it, I realise a river would have been too good for you.’

            The sound of Andrew’s footsteps began to echo and fade into the distance. ‘If you’re not dead by the time I’m back, Will…’

            The loud bang of a metal door shook the room, leaving Will in suspense. He tried to breathe but the scent of rotting flesh and rusted metal filled his lungs.

 

‘ _D’s Cannery_.’ Jack scrolled down the list of vans that matched the description of the one Will had been in when he was last seen two days ago.

            ‘They were… Shut down two years ago. Sold their vans off as scrap and as refurb jobs. Most were repainted.’ Jimmy had returned and was sat beside Jack.

            ‘Anyone registered to have one of this exact colour?’

            ‘Three? The only one insured to drive it is a Trevor Patrick.’ Jimmy typed quickly, hoping to get Jack’s mind back onto Beverly as soon as he could, even if that meant diverting resources just for a moment. He printed off the address and handed it over.

            ‘We’ll go check him out, call us if there are any other matches.’ Jack stood and went to his temporary office to find Hannibal asleep on the couch in there.

            Hannibal sat up the moment he heard the door open. ‘You have an address, Jack?’

            ‘Hopefully.’

            They headed out to the address and found a rundown house. Tiles were missing from the roof and the brown picket fence was falling into the yard. Only one light was on at the front of the house.

            Jack led the way, knocking once before he decided he didn’t want to wait for a potential killer to open the door. Trudging over the snow covered lawn, he peered through the window.

            ‘Shit!’ Jack rushed back and began to try to force the door open. ‘Hannibal, check the back.’ It might’ve been unlocked.

            Without the need for anymore instructions, Hannibal took his time to walk around the back of the house. He found the back door fully open, snow across the kitchen. Whoever owned this place hadn’t bothered to close up since the blizzard a few days before.

            The sound of Hannibal’s steps crunched as if there were glass beneath the layer of snow. When he reached the living room, a nude Trevor Patrick swung from an exposed light fitting. The cold inside the house did little to delay the decay. Flies were already moving in around the bodily openings and his skin was clearly frostbitten.

            Hannibal opened the front door for Jack. ‘It is likely your man has been dead since the night he took William, Jack.’

            Jack entered the house to inspect the scene, already calling it in with the station. ‘Looks like the son of a bitch felt guilty for what he did.’ As angry as he sounded, he could multiply it by twenty. Trevor Patrick had taken whatever evidence of Will’s whereabouts with him.

 

Will strained against his bindings, ankles tied to his wrists. The floor was moving him towards a threat he didn’t know, but refused to let whatever was at the end of the conveyor belt kill him. He used the curve of his belly and tried to rock side to side, shifting closer and closer to the edge. Each motion hurt more than the one before, his stitched gunshot wound bearing the brunt of the pressure.

            With one last push, he toppled onto the hard concrete floor. Something cracked as he landed, sending a scream echoing through the room. The gag slipped from his mouth and Will tried to pry the blindfold from his eyes using the floor’s friction.

            The fabric rolled down his face over his nose and around his neck. It took a while to focus through the light and he finally saw the whole room.

            The daylight illuminated a concrete and metal room filled with rusted machinery. The windows high above him were all smashed in but barred with metal and Will had no way of climbing up to them, even if he had been untied.

            The only thing in working order seemed to be the looping conveyor belt and not threat at any end. Sobbing, Will pressed his head against the damp concrete and laughed in relief. Nothing. He’d never been Schrödinger’s cat but simply a mouse on a wheel of suspense.

            The door reopened and Andrew stood there with a smile that would have been considered almost pleasant if Will didn’t know how damaged he was.

            ‘Where’s Beverly?’ Will said, voice cracking from dryness.

            Andrew’s brow creased, then. ‘Beverly who?’ He knelt beside Will and opened an unmarked tin. ‘We can’t have any unnecessary distractions now. We have a lot to do.’ He scooped whatever was in the can with a plastic spoon and pressed it to Will’s mouth.

            The stench sent Will’s stomach churning. It was like that dog food he’d once bought and never bought again after mess the dogs left the an hour or so later.

            ‘You have to eat it!’

            Will shook his head, wondering what the lumps of meat were. Fatty, gristly chicken? Something worse? And was this stuff even in date? The tin definitely looked like it had been dented at some point.

            Andrew grew more and more agitated, the food slipping from the spoon and sharp plastic cutting into Will’s lips.

            Something about the frantic way Andrew’s eyes insisted Will ate told him that Ashley’s death had done more than drive him to murder. It had broken him on a whole different level.

            Beads of sweat ran down Will’s chin and neck, his head swimming.

            ‘Please eat it!’ Andrew was practically begging now, obviously desperate to keep Will alive.

            Parting his lips, Will reluctantly accepted the horrid food. All he wanted to do was to go home, get drunk and knock himself out with painkillers. It was a nightmare he couldn’t wake up from.

            ‘I knew you’d do it.’ Andrew had the smile of a child.

            Will nodded, slowly eating each spoonful he was offered. It slowly dawned on him that the better he behaved, the calmer Andrew was. The calmer Andrew was, the more likely it would be he could find Beverly alive.

           

Hannibal ducked under the broken wire fencing into the abandoned industrial estate. The buildings stood as tall carcasses of the past. Vile reminders of the bacterial nature of humans. They eat away at the beauty of the world and leave nothing but hideous scars in the Earth. But even these scars held a haunting beauty.

           

A weight crushed Will’s chest, bile rising up into his throat. He strained against his bindings and struggled to keep himself from vomiting.

            Andrew set the can down and helped sit him up. ‘Wasn’t it nice?’ He wiped away at the sauce on Will’s face and tried to get Will to respond.

            Will’s eyes struggled to focus on anything.

 

The crunch of Hannibal’s shoes disturbing gravel echoed off of the buildings as he walked through the maze. The very scent of rotting flesh and congealed blood burned his keen nose.

            _D’s Cannery_ stood a short distance away and was as still as any of the skeletons there. Graffiti marked the place as ‘Dick Cancer’ instead and there didn’t seem to be any movement in the lower floors.

 

‘Will. Will?’ a female whispered in his ear. ‘Wake up, Will. For fuck’s sake Will.’

            Will’s eyes stung as he tried to pry them open. His arms were no longer pinned behind him and his legs were unbound.

            ‘If you don’t wake up, we’re dead.’ Someone kicked him.

            Will rolled onto his side to sit up, his limbs hurting and the throbbing behind his head still there. A foul aftertaste coated his mouth from the can of off chicken.

            ‘Beverly?’ It took a moment for him to register what was happening. Beverly was sat right beside him in a chair, an FBI Academy uniform on and a filthy black eye on her face.

            ‘Stop staring and untie me.’

            Will struggled to stand, his limbs screaming. Each move he made was shaky and he nearly collapsed when he finally reached the edge of the makeshift bed.

            His fingers fumbled with the knots but Beverly was finally free. ‘Are you… okay?’

            ‘As okay as you are. Good idea faking that seizure.’ She stood and took shaky steps towards a metal toolbox nearby. She didn’t want to think about what she had seen. Whatever her attacker had done to them was clearly something not worth thinking about until they were safe.

            Will frowned and tried to find some clothes. ‘Sicko likes to play dolls.’ He paused his search when he found Trevor’s dungarees in a pile of half the victims’ clothes. He had hoped Andrew had let Trevor live but reason told him that that was never going to happen.

            He pulled on the clothes, a deep wave of nausea hitting him. It was guilt, he told himself. He was wearing the clothes of a dead man who'd tried to save him. But then, wasn’t he also the man who’d helped Andrew kill all of those women?

            ‘Hey, we-we gotta get out of here,’ Beverly said as she strained with the piece of wood nailed across a window.

            Will nodded and moved to help her, using his larger frame to give it more leverage. A creak followed and the whole thing pulled away in a cloud of dust and mould. The bright sun blinded them for a moment before they realised that they were only inches away from falling three stories down onto the concrete below.

            A figure moved between the buildings like a shadow, almost unrecognisable at that distance. Will wanted to yell for them to help. To draw as much attention to their location as possible.

            Beverly wanted quite the opposite. ‘We can’t risk them coming here and getting killed, Will.’

            Will glanced over at the shadow as it disappeared behind a pickup truck. ‘You’re right.’ They’d just be feeding the beast.

            ‘Not to mention that Andrew would know we got loose.’

            With all of her wounds, Beverly began to shift closer to the edge and climbed down far enough to hang from the window. She didn’t know her way out of the building from the inside but she definitely knew this route.

            Will wasn’t sold on the idea of breaking his legs trying to escape, but he knew anyone in Beverly’s situation would want to get out as soon as possible.

 

The rusted metal door took some force to open, but once Hannibal was inside it was clear this was the place Andrew had bought Will. He moved through the warehouse enjoying each fading boot print and month old blood stain. This was where Andrew had taken every one of his victims.

            Jack would have had a field-day if Hannibal had told him where he was going. But then again, he had been curious about Andrew and didn’t want the FBI to get to him before he did.

            After all, this man had been one of Will’s best students – and had such a wonderful mind. A labyrinth of shattered bones and torn flesh. Every thought in that poor _poor_ boy’s head must have been wracked with blame.

            But Will was Hannibal’s toy, and Beverly was someone Hannibal would have liked in another life. At the very least, he admired her.

            And only Hannibal could end them.

            A crash echoed through the estate – just outside of the building. It sounded like ply wood against concrete. It must have come from one of the windows on the third floor – the only one that they’d bothered boarding anything up.

            Hannibal moved up a set of crumbling stairs, his feet moving in silence. He could smell something rotten ahead of him, all while something behind him smelled… of Will’s vile cologne and that sweetish warm musk of Will’s sweat. But the scent was fading, even as the shadow that followed drew closer.

            As he reached the top step, he reached into his jacket pocket.

            Something grabbed his ankle and pulled him down.

            Putting his arms in the way, he managed to keep his head from slamming into the stairs before he twisted and kicked out at the shadow.

           Andrew Wilmott – wearing Will’s clothes – let go, raising a rusted pole above his head. ‘You’re not supposed to be here.’ The metal pole came down.

 

Will was knelt at the window as he guided Beverly through her climb down when he heard Andrew crashing about nearby.

            ‘Wi---ll, I need your attention. Hey, Will!’ Beverly was clinging onto a protruding pipe, feet swinging about as they struggled for leverage.

            He was practically trembling when he returned his attention to her. The drumming in his skull was making him feel even worse. ‘Uh, yeah. Um, there’s a-a vent left of you.’

 

Hannibal jammed a pen between Andrew’s kneecap and the ball joint before he scrambled up the stairs to give himself better ground to kill this man.

            When no one followed, he knew Andrew’s only interest was erasing his imperfect victims.

 

The door swung open. Before Will could turn around, he felt the straps of the dungarees pull tight and the sharp agony of being slammed into the glass-filled floor.

            ‘Will? Will! Shit.’ Beverly began to drag her sore body back up towards the window. ‘Get off of him you bastard!’ She felt her weakened muscles scream as she tried to pull herself up back into the room.

            Andrew pressed his whole weight on the small of Will’s back, his knee crushing the visibly smaller man. ‘Stay back Ashley! You shouldn’t see this.’

            Every time Beverly’s hands slipped, she made a desperate scramble to get back up. ‘You think Ashley would want this? Any of it?’

            ‘She was gonna be a great FBI agent, Andrew,’ Will said.

            ‘Shut up shut up!’ Andrew slammed Will’s face into the floor. ‘You killed her. You killed her and now you have to pay.’ He pulled Will’s gun out.

            Hannibal stuck to the shadows as he entered the room. ‘Ashley isn’t dead, Andrew. Look at her.’

            Andrew turned to look to Beverly, who was finally back into the room. ‘She’s a failure, too! She doesn’t want me.’

            Hannibal didn’t wish to attack this weak creature. He wanted to see how far he could push before Will and Beverly truly needed saving.

            Bevely knelt beside her attacker, the panic rising up in her chest but never reaching her eyes. ‘Ashley would want the man she was looking for at the academy. Where’s Andy?’

            Will strained under the crushing weight of the man and tried to crawl out from beneath him.

            ‘She wanted Mr. Graham. She wanted him and he sent her out to die.’ Andrew shifted his weight and pressed the barrel to Will’s head.

            ‘No, he didn’t.’ Beverly covered his hand with her’s as she tried prying the gun from his hands.

            ‘You did.’ Will groaned out, one of his stray hands trying to push the man from him.

            Beverly managed to grab the gun, just as blood erupted from Andrew’s dead.

            Jack appeared beside Hannibal, gun still vibrating from shot.

 

‘I’m fine.’ Will waved away paramedics attempting to help him. All that mattered now was that Beverly was intact. He sat on the steps into the factory thinking about how just a few days ago Beverly had been joking with the others about Norman Bates' motel. Considering what Andrew had done to the victims, he knew she’d likely never be the same again.

            ‘You okay?’ Beverly appeared draped in blankets and holding two steaming cups. ‘Thought you could use some coffee.’ She winced as she sat beside him. ‘And no, I don’t want to talk about what happened to me – so shut it.’

            Will took a cup from her and sipped it, eyes still glazed from his thoughts.

            ‘Jack asked me something weird, though.’ Beverly turned to him, brows creased. ‘It was about you.’

            Will remained silent, dreading this moment since reality had been allowed to settle.

            ‘He said you saw a ghost the night I was taken.’ She sipped her coffee, cracked fingernails scraping at the Styrofoam. ‘But I didn’t see this ‘Ashley’.’

            ‘I was probably just mistaken.’ Will kept his eyes forwards, watching Jack and Hannibal discussing something in hushed tones.

            ‘But I did see Andrew.’ Beverly leaned in slowly.

            Will frowned and risked a glance over to her. ‘What?’

            ‘I saw Andrew go into your motel room. And I was taken when I was watching you let him in.’

            ‘Trevor took you?’

            ‘Whatever his name was, he wasn’t nearly as bad as Andrew.’ Beverly sipped her coffee, overflowing with things she wanted to say but unwilling to confide in someone who was as much trouble as she was.

            Jack beckoned Will over and Will reluctantly left Beverly to be fussed over by Brian and Jimmy.

            ‘Beverly explained what happened,’ Jack said. ‘And Hannibal explained everything.’

            Will felt like a child being told off by his father. ‘And what did Doctor Lecter say?’

            ‘That sometimes you can… imagine things when you’re under stress. You had just woken up in a strange place and was practically attacked by the killer? You probably… did your thing and got confused.’

            ‘Did my thing?’

            ‘We don’t have a clue how your empathy works, but Hannibal said it’s highly likely that you have nothing to do with it. Which is why it’s my discretion to leave certain facts out of the reports. If you do too.’

            ‘And Beverly agreed to this?’

            ‘Andrew Wilmott is dead and having our best agents called into question would just make it worse for everyone.’

 

Will sat in his cell remembering how Jack had decided to ignore that evidence for his benefit. Hannibal had been playing puppeteer even then and now Will understood. He could see. Andrew Wilmott had entered Will’s room, begging him to help erase the guilt. All Will could see through the encephalitis was Ashley.

            His mind had forged the links but the infection had blinded him to it. This all could have been prevented if Will was healthy. 

 

           


End file.
